UNION HOME minister Amit Shah Saturday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had taught such a lesson to rioters in Gujarat in 2002 when he was the Chief Minister that none has dared to riot again in the state till date. He also credited Modi for abrogating Article 370 ‘in a jiffy’, building a temple for Ram who was housed in a ‘tent’ and the Covid-19 vaccine. “Behajaar be ma riots karya ta pachhi Modisahebe khod bhulayi didhi, pachhi hullad thayu chhe? Bolo. (In 2002, they did the riots, then Modisaheb taught them a lesson.tell me, have there been riots after that?),” Shah said at the Sanand gram panchayat where he took a pledge to make India a developed country by 2047 and “removing slavery mentality from its root”. “Earlier, every day, we would have bomb blasts… so many that journalists would forget to print. But with a surgical air strike once, we taught Pakistan a lesson… Narendrabhai has made the country safer,” the Home Minister said. “In Kashmir, the dream of Sardar Patel and Syama Prasad Mukherjee to remove Article 370 was fulfilled in a jiffy,” Shah said, snapping his fingers. “For 550 years, our own country’s Lord Ram was living in a tent, a temple could not be made. Narendrabhai completed the work of making a temple. The entire world reached the Moon but our flag could not. Narendrabhai sent Chandrayaan to the Moon and at Shivshakti point made our tricolour fly high. He has worked such that in the country’s economy, all parameters have been at their best in the past 75 years. If one takes 10-year intervals, industrial development has been the most during Narendrabhai’s tenure.,” Shah said. Later, addressing students at the 66th convocation of the Sardar Patel University in Anand district’s Vallabh Vidyanagar, Shah said, “At first, when I used to work in Gujarat, I had respect for Sardar Patel just like every other Gujarati. But when I moved to national politics after 2012 and started travelling across the country, I realised that had it not been for Sardar Patel, the unification of India would have been impossible. Today, I publicly admit that after travelling to North East, Kashmir, Hyderabad, and Jodhpur, and witnessing the adoration people have in their hearts for Sardar Patel, my opinion has changed… When Modiji decided to abrogate Article 370, and when I studied the historical papers during that time, I learnt that Sardar Patel had accepted the decision to impose Article 370 in Kashmir with deep anguish and heartache. One Gujarati, Narendrabhai (Modi), has made Sardar Patel's wish come true.” It was because of Sardar Patel that India “did not disintegrate” after independence “as the world imagined”, said Shah. “While leaving India, the British made a decision that the princely states were free to remain independent or to join India or Pakistan as they liked. The entire world thought India would disintegrate and be violated but they did not know that there was a leader called Sardar Patel here. If you meet the people who suffered the difficulties of partition and the complexities, you will know who Sardar Patel is. Rich businessmen became paupers and turned refugees in their own country. If anyone undertook the task of rehabilitating and protecting them, it was Sardar Patel. From 3 am to midnight, even at his age (at that time), he met one princely state after another and convinced them to agree to joining India,” he said. Addressing the sixth Advancements in Endo-urology Conference in Ahmedabad, Shah said, “When Modiji introduced the concept of janta curfew during Covid-19, for people across the country, a curfew without government notification was new; but people in Gujarat were familiar with it.” He also lauded the technology put to use during Covid-19, the making of the vaccine, generation of vaccination certificates, setting up of temporary hospitals during the pandemic, and supply of oxygen through express trains. “Making vaccines is easy, but in a country like India, making it available for 130 crore people, making it reach on time, administering it, and then monitoring it, is difficult. By using technology, we delivered the receipt within 30 seconds,” he said. “My sister wanted to come to India from America but she said she is unable to come because she does not have a vaccine certificate. She said it has been 1.5 months but has not received the certificate. This is a result of such good use of technology by the Indian government,” Shah added.
